New App Aids Exploration of America’s National Parks

The National Park Service (NPS) and its educational partner Eastern National developed an app to compliment their successful Passport to Your National Parks program. While the passport program is a booklet that visitors to parks and monuments get stamped with each place they visit, the app is its digital companion. The app allows a user to search for essential park information, record details of your visit in the style of journal entry, import photographs, plan your trip, and more.

View this informational video put together by the app’s developer, Eastern National.

httpv://youtu.be/k3TZ05ijtcU

Original press release issued by National Park Service on March 13th, 2012:

Planning a trip to a national park? Want to keep a “life list” of the parks you visit? Meet your new favorite app.

Developed by the National Park Service’s long-time partner nonprofit educational partner, Eastern National, the new app provides links to all 397 national park websites for quick access to trip planning. The app also allows users to keep track of the parks they’ve visited and add photos and descriptions of the trip. You can also make a wish list of parks to check out. Every park on your list gets a red push pin on the app map.

“This app is a terrific new tool that will excite our visitors,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “It’s a great combination of easy access to useful information and cool features that will help millions of people capture their visits to their national parks. And what better time to download and get started than April’s National Park Week when all national parks waive entrance fees and invite you to come visit for free.”

The app is designed to complement Eastern’s wildly popular Passport to Your National Parks program by helping users find passport stamp cancellation stations in parks so they can record the location and date of their visit.

“For many people, a visit to a national park isn’t complete until they’ve stamped their passport,” said George Minnucci, President of Eastern National. “The app will help visitors plan their next trip, find Passport cancellation stations in each park, and share the memories they make while visiting parks.”

“I applaud Eastern for embracing our ‘Go Digital’ challenge to use technology to help enhance park experiences for visitors,” said Jarvis. “This is a natural extension of the high quality educational products they have created for our visitors for so many years.”

The app is a free download at the iTunes store. It is currently available for iPhones and iPads. An Android version will be added later, as will additional features.